Worldwide use of wireless communication devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, and other digital electronic devices continues to increase steadily, as such devices become more powerful and less expensive. Today, it is not uncommon for a single wireless communications device to provide multiple services to a user, such as voice calling, text messaging, email, internet access, instant messaging, multimedia content presentation, and nearly any other function that may have been reserved in the past to a desktop computer, a television, or a landline telephone.
Such communication devices typically request data from a network, e.g., via radio resources. Current devices generally request data from the network “on demand” without regard to current conditions and status of the wireless device or power consumption. There is a need for methods and systems for more efficiently processing requests for wireless communications resources and/or reducing power consumption in a wireless communications device.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,169,943 teaches a method and device for saving power in a wireless user terminal, in which there can be at least one controlling node, which serves to control the transmissions to and from the user terminal. A user terminal can be in an “off” state in which it does not listen for data from its controlling node, or an “on” state in which it listens for data from its controlling node, each state being assumed for a certain amount of time. The user terminal switches between the off state and the on state at periodic intervals according to a predetermined discontinuous reception cycle for mixed data including pre-defined on and off periods, where the on period is extended if non-real time data is received.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,131,325 teaches a method, apparatus and system for battery resource management via traffic steering, where a wireless device is configured to request content from an intermediation server, which is configured to analyze the requested content and send an indication to the wireless device as to which bearer path is to be selected based on which bearer path (e.g., EDGE or 3G) is battery-life optimized.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0017804 teaches a system for efficiently processing radio resource requests. Requests for data access from a wireless communications device are aggregated to more efficiently use radio resources, wherein aggregated requests may not be transmitted until a total number of requests or size of aggregated requests exceeds a threshold. Regardless of aggregation, requests may be stored until a timer expires, and then transmitted to the radio access network. Request priority, environmental data, and device data may be taken into account in determining when to transmit requests for data access.